Red Sox prospect Matt Barnes goes way back with Houston phenom George Springer

Friday

Jul 11, 2014 at 10:06 AM

HOUSTON — Like much of the American League already has, the Red Sox were ready to get their first glimpse of Houston Astros rookie outfielder George Springer at Minute Maid Park this weekend. Springer has hit 19 home runs in his first 330 plate appea

Brian MacPherson Journal Sports Writer brianmacp

HOUSTON — Like much of the American League already has, the Red Sox were ready to get their first glimpse of Houston Astros rookie outfielder George Springer at Minute Maid Park this weekend. Springer has hit 19 home runs in his first 330 plate appearances in the major leagues, a 35-homer pace over a full season.

If the Red Sox want a primer on Springer, they don’t have to look far — one of his best friends is pitching in their farm system for Triple-A Pawtucket.

Barnes and Springer first played together for the Team Connecticut Blue Jays in 2007, the summer after their respective junior years at Bethel and Avon Old Farms. They played together at UConn for three years. They played together for the Wareham Gatemen of the Cape Cod Baseball League the summer after their freshman year at UConn and for the USA Baseball collegiate national team the summer after that.

It wasn’t until the 2011 MLB draft that the two parted ways. Springer went to the Houston Astros with the No. 11 overall pick that year, and Barnes went to the Red Sox with the No. 19 overall pick.

Three years later, Barnes is pitching for the PawSox, one level shy of the major leagues, while Springer is making a charge at American League Rookie of the Year honors for the Astros.

The two still talk regularly — “probably at least once a week,” Barnes said. “I follow him and talk to him and see how he’s doing and everything. It’s not always about baseball. We joke around and talk about stuff outside it.”

When Barnes watches Springer now, he sees the same player he’s known for the last seven years.

Springer already leads the American League in strikeouts (109), but he’s hit the same number of home runs as David Ortiz despite having spent the first two weeks of the season in the minor leagues.

“He’s obviously developed as a player because what he’s doing now is what he was doing in college; he’s just doing it at the highest level possible,” Barnes said. “All areas of his game have definitely improved, but they’re all on par with what he’s always done at that level. He’s always made that adjustment to be able to excel at the level he’s at.”

The two find themselves in significantly different situations with their franchises at the positions they play.

Springer plays for an organization that has made the decision to forego competitiveness in the short-term in order to accumulate young assets — like Springer, for example — and build around them going forward. He played fewer than 200 combined games at Double-A and Triple-A before he reached the major leagues. There was nobody of consequence blocking him.

Barnes pitches for an organization that came into spring training with six veteran starting pitchers contending for spots in the rotation and as well as another half-dozen highly touted young pitchers at the upper levels of the minor leagues, meaning Barnes found himself somewhere around 10th on the organizational starting-pitching depth chart coming out of spring training.

The two don’t talk much about their respective travails anymore. Those conversations happened much more two or three years ago.

“When we first signed and played pro ball, that first year and maybe second year, we talked about that a little bit more,” Barnes said. “But now, both being at higher levels and having made that adjustment, obviously we’re still making adjustments to levels to try to improve, but we talked more about that the first year — what the transition was like for me throwing every five days or for him having to play 140 games, things like that.”